In the fall of 2004, St. Tammany citizens seemed to be in no mood to
vote for a new property tax. A series of tax propositions had been
defeated at the polls over the previous two years and observers were
bantering about the anti-tax sentiment amongst the conservative north
shore electorate.

So when Coroner Peter Galvan put forth a proposal for a new, 4-mill,
20-year property tax to build a state-of-the-art morgue and forensic
laboratory with the latest DNA gizmos, many at the time felt it faced certain defeat. But a crafty promotional effort by the coroner yielded an
unlikely victory at the polls.

Almost a decade later, curiosity in the 2004 ballot
initiative has been piqued with revelations that Galvan's office has been
spending public money with abandon on salaries, dinners, groceries, sporting
goods and other items which would seem to have little to do
with the operation of the coroner's office. The Legislative Auditor is currently
looking into the agency's spending practices. Meanwhile, local legislators are
working on a bill that would remove the coroner's ability to set his own pay
and limit the total control he now enjoys over the agency's budget, a unique
freedom granted him by the Legislature in 2007. Galvan has declined several
requests for comment from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune.

The St. Tammany Parish Coroner's Office's new facility on 40 acres north of Lacombe.Ted Jackson, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Nine years ago, Galvan was much more visible, spearheading
the voter drive that brought financial bounty to his agency, along with the
issues that followed. Crowded onto a ballot that also included
the heated George W. Bush/John Kerry presidential election, the corner's
revenue initiative flew well under the electoral radar until about a
week before the Nov. 2 election.

It was then that Galvan
launched a late, $100,000 advertising blitz, funded with money from his
campaign war chest that went unused when he was re-elected to a second
term without opposition in 2003. Galvan employed the services of
political consultants, who designed a campaign that played to the
tough-on-crime mentality of voters in a parish known as "St. Slammany"
for its reputation to imprison offenders for long periods of time.

Households received two glossy brochures, one featuring the support
of Lynne Marino, whose daughter Pam Kinamore had been murdered in 2002.
The homicide of Kinamore, a Denham Springs mother, decorator and
antiques dealer, had been linked by DNA evidence to convicted serial
killer Derrick Todd Lee, and Marino had emerged as a proponent
of DNA testing.

Meanwhile, the CBS drama "CSI, Crime Scene
Investigation," which premiered in October of 2000, was sitting atop the
Nielson ratings, giving millions of viewers a fictional taste of what
DNA and other gadgetry could do to bolster modern day sleuthing. It
provided a perfect backdrop for the referendum, which was narrowly
approved with 46,820 voting in favor and 45,111 against it. The fact
that the measure trailed by almost 2,000 votes in absentee ballots cast
in the weeks leading up to the election lends credence to the theory that the
emotional ad campaign did the trick for Galvan, a point he made publicly
after all the votes were tallied.

The 2004 vote was a clear
deviation for parish voters, who had just defeated a series of new taxes
proposed by the Sheriff's Office and the city of Slidell. In 2002, a
12-mill property tax proposal that would have allowed the Sheriff's
Office to raise deputy salaries was defeated, as was a half-cent sales
tax for drainage and street improvements in Slidell. Voters in July of
2004 also shot down quarter-cent sales taxes pushed by the Sheriff's
Office and Slidell.

An undaunted Galvan pushed hard for his
proposal, telling voters that DNA evidence in St. Tammany criminal cases
often became ensnarled in backlogs at the State Police crime lab,
delaying results for a year or longer. He pointed to the expense of
having to jail suspects while awaiting lab results and hinted that
suspected sex criminals were being released because of the delays.
Sometimes referring to his proposal as "CSI St. Tammany," Galvan pointed
out that DNA evidence was the "crime fighting tool of the 21st
century." He also noted that the tax would fund a crisis intervention
unit to help victims of rape and aid the parish in its quest to reduce
its high suicide and drug overdose deaths. The strategy spelled victory
at the polls for Galvan, and a huge financial boost for his agency.

With
the blessing of voters, the coroner's annual budget rose by more than
400 percent, from $650,000 to around $3.45 million at the time. The
money allowed Galvan to fulfill his promise to build an $11.4 million
state-of-the art morgue and DNA facility near Lacombe and dramatically
increase the agency's staffing without draining money from the parish's
general fund. The project allowed the coroner's office to consolidate
its morgue, toxicology labs and administrative officers, which were
previously scattered across the parish. Ground was broken for the new facility in 2010.

The coroner's cash infusion also led to the demands that
are now being prescribed by the electorate.

Now good government groups and
others are retracing the steps they took nine years ago when vetting
the coroner's proposition and wondering how such a hefty tax increase
was able to buck the early 2000 trend in which parish voters chewed up
and spit out other revenue measures.

Sandra Slifer, president of
the St. Tammany League of Women's Voters, said her organization
typically does not take a position on such revenue matters, but now
regrets that the league didn't take a stand against it. "Of course,
hindsight is 20-20 and knowing what we know now....," she said.

Rick Franzo, president of Concerned Citizens of St. Tammany and
Concerned Citizens of Lacombe, has emerged as the one of the coroner's
most ardent critics. He said Galvan's office, with its 4 mills, is grossly
overfunded and the agency's spending practices amount to an "outrageous
and arrogant abuse ... of taxpayer funds."

None of the coroners in
surrounding parishes receive even half as much in property tax support,
Franzo said, despite having case loads that are substantially higher.
"Based on the tax base of surrounding parishes and the misuse of excess
funds by the parish coroner, the current 4-mill tax should be rescinded
and replaced with no more than one mill," he said.

Franzo said he
doesn't recall much organized opposition to the 2004 millage
proposition, and admits that good government groups perhaps should have
taken a harder look at it. But that
notwithstanding, he holds the coroner responsible for the office's
questionable spending practices.

"Everyone has to be more engaged
and know what we're voting for," he said. "We're all guilty of that to
some degree. A loophole was left for the coroner. Some people wouldn't
have taken advantage of the loophole, but the coroner did."